LAURA PAULING INTERVIEW AND GIVEAWAY OF A SPY LIKE ME

Before I start my awesome interview, I've got a ton of winners to announce. Yay!

The winners of Sleuth or Dare are:

Marcy and Vivien!

The winner of PERCEPTION is:

FourheadJen

The winner of STARTERS is:

REBECCA HIPWORTH!

The winner of A TOUCH OF POWER is:

ALI B.!

The winner of FRACTURE is

NATASHA!

The winner of CORNERSTONE are:

PUTTPUTT and GALE NELSON!

And the winner of STORYBOUND is:

NATASHA!

Congrats! E-mail me your addresses within 48 hours or I'll have to pick another winner.

Today I’m excited to interview Laura Pauling, a
blogger friend and one of our followers. She independently published her debut
book A SPY LIKE ME that was released on May 7, 2012. I really enjoyed watching Savvy try to solve
the mystery of what happened to her friend and her mother and get herself out
of some of jams she got into while learning to be a spy. And it’s set in a
fabulous setting—Paris.

Seventeen-year-old
Savvy Bent expects magic on her first date with Malcolm - in Paris!
Except over a picnic of sparkling cider and strawberry tortes, he gets
shot at. That's only the beginning. From the top of the Eiffel Tower to
the depths of the catacombs, Savvy must sneak, deceive, and spy to save
her family and friends and figure out whether Malcolm is one of the bad
guys before she completely falls for him.

A SPY LIKE ME is a cat
and mouse adventure full of spies, a nefarious pastry chef, and a
completely innocent teen girl. Well, not completely innocent.

Hi Laura. Thanks so much for joining us.

1.
Tell us a bit about yourself and how you became a writer.

I started out being a spy…I mean teaching. I loved
creating fun lesson plans and curriculum and I loved finding new ideas. Just
like I always enjoyed planning the big birthday parties for my daughter. Before
I started writing I got into scrapbooking - until I realized the expense
involved. I dabbled in quilting. In other words, I always needed a creative
outlet. I’d been writing on and off never taking it very seriously until I kept
getting this feeling after reading a great book or watching a television show.
I call it the desire for story.

The next day I started writing more seriously.

2. Awesome that you're so creative in different ways. Your story is set in Paris and you do a great
job of naturally showing us not only some of the well-known sites but also a
feel of the city if you lived there. Have you been to Paris or did you rely on
research in developing the setting?

I wish I’d been to Paris. In high school, I studied
French. I have so many good memories of that class. Poor teacher. We’d crack up
at the ridiculous textbook stories we had to read. So I was drawn to Paris. But
I did a lot of research: blogs, Google maps, YouTube. I loved the home videos
people put up of the Eiffel Tower. The website of The Louvre really helped too.
Necessary, but fun research.

3.
YouTube isn't something I've heard of doing. But what a great idea. Savvy (what an interesting name BTW) is a complex character. She doesn’t want
to be in Paris or help her dad with his spy business but becomes a reluctant
spy when she becomes concerned about her missing friend. And she’s independent
and not afraid to speak her mind. Tell us a bit about her character development
and if there’s any part of you in her.

I’m sure Savvy is a part of me. There’s a part of me
in all my stories. I had a rocky relationship with my parents in high school,
especially my dad. So family and working through those relationships is often
present in my writing.

4.
Let’s talk about Malcolm for a bit. He’s not the usual love interest that we
always love. In fact I wanted to strangle him on more than one occasion. What
were the challenges in making him likeable but not completely someone Savvy or
the reader likes?

I don’t mind the YA male hottie, the bad boy…etc.
But that’s not usually the character I write. Malcolm deserves his own story
for readers to understand what he’s dealing with as he tries to work with the
fact that his family’s business isn’t exactly legal. He struggles like everyone
else, like Savvy, trying to accept his family and figure out what’s going on. I
love Malcolm because he’s a mystery; yet, he has a soft spot for Savvy, and she
makes him question everything.

5.
I like that he's different. And you've got me wanting to know more about him. Your story is a mystery and you’ve
weaved a number of them into your story. That’s one of the things I enjoyed
about it. Can you give us some tips on plotting out a mystery?

Thanks! I love some kind of mystery in the stories I
read and write. My biggest tip would be that nothing should be as it seems. I
know that sounds simple but as a story progresses and new information is
revealed, the earlier chapters should take on new meaning.

6.
Savvy uses some techno techniques for finding clues, like the trackers and
rappelling hooks. How did you come up with them and what research did you do to
decide on them or do you have a detective background?

My detective background includes reading and
watching mysteries all the time. I love Castle. I loved LOST and all the
unanswered questions and the incredible plotting. Part of the fun of writing a
spy novel is the gadgets. And no, I’m not expert. Google is my friend.

7. Well unlike the rest of us, you've got a good excuse to watch TV. Okay here’s a big question. You decided to
independently publish your story. I know from your blog that you always really
think about things so I’m sure you did the same in deciding how to publish
this. Tell us some of the considerations that went into your decision to
independently publish A SPY LIKE ME and why you felt it was right for you.

I was ready. I’d been writing for years. This wasn’t
my first manuscript. I loved the idea of taking control. The process didn’t
scare me - it excited me!

But what really got me thinking was Nathan
Bransford’s blog post when he stated that midlisters could make more money self
publishing. The other big factor was the extremely low ebook royalties authors
receive.

But I’m a firm believer that writers have to make
the decision based on their goals. There are many different routes to
publishing and there is no one right way.

8. Yes, I like that there are options. How are you marketing your book and how you
are reaching out to teen who would want to read your book?

I sent out early review copies. I tried my best to
raise pre-release awareness. I’m hosting a blog series of mystery authors.
Social media. Short stories. I’m part of a group blog and we all promote each
other. But I truly think that word of mouth is the best way.

Marketing is endless and I’m sure I’ll learn a lot
in the next couple years.

In fact, my first short story, The Almost Assassin, written from Malcolm’s point of view is free
on Smashwords
and it includes an excerpt from A Spy
Like Me.

I’d love to reach teens but I’m not actively
targeting them because that would require school visits and being in
bookstores. Yes, they are on Facebook and Tumblr but I’m not going to go out
and stalk them - creepy. If an author truly wants to reach teens and mainly
teens, they should probably go the traditional route or think really hard about
their marketing plan.

9. Great advice Laura. One of the things I’ve loved in watching your
publication journey is that you continued to seek out different publishing
avenues. You recently signed a book deal with a publisher for another book.
Tell us about that.

I signed with Pugalicious Press for my middle grade:
How To Survive Ancient Spells and Crazy Kings. Bianca and her cousin endure a
cursed 2,000-year-old Ancient May city to rescue their grandfather except he
doesn’t want to be saved and the king wants to serve Biance up as an appetizer
to the gods. But he’s met his match.

I think the self-publishing market for middle grade
is a hard one. But going with a small press is equally as hard because the
marketing and promotion is about the same. I was impressed with Pugalicious and
knew they would do a good job with my story.

10.
I agree that it's harder to just have e-books for a middle grader. What are you working on now?

I’m working on the sequel to A Spy Like Me and a series of short stories based on Savvy’s mom.

Thanks so much, Natalie! I love Literary Rambles!

Thanks so much Laura for sharing all your great
advice. You can find Laura at:

Laura Pauling writes about
spies, murder and mystery. A Spy Like Me,
her YA debut novel is available now. Her short story, The Almost Assassin, appeared in the In His Eyes Anthology and is free as a re-release on Smashwords.

Laura has generously offered one free copy of her book on Smashwords. Don't have a e-reader? No problem. I don't either but I've downloaded books onto my computer with no problem. And I enjoy reading them that way.

All you need to do is be a follower (just
click the follow button if you’re not a follower) and leave a comment
by midnight on June 16th. I’ll announce the winner on June 18th. If your
e-mail is not on Blogger, please list it in your comment. International
entries are welcome.

If
you mention this contest on your blog, Twitter, or Facebook, please
let me know in the comments and I’ll give you an extra entry.

Here's what's coming up:

I'm so excited for Monday. I'm helping Elana Johnson celebrate the release of SURRENDER. It's
one of the most awesome second books in a series that I've read. I'm
giving away my ARC (only because I bought a book for my daughter and me.
She loves it too and would not let me give it away otherwise). Guys, many of you know Elana so I hope you'll make a special effort to stop by and say hi and spread the word for her and about my contest.

On Wednesday next week I'm interviewing Elle Strauss and giving away a copy of her YA time travel book LIKE CLOCKWORK.

Then the following Monday, I'm interviewing debut author Jennifer Bosworth and giving away
an ARC of STRUCK, another awesome dystopian book.

29 comments:

Congrats to Laura for tackling self-publishing, and thank you for sharing what you've learned so far. It sounds like you've done a lot of research and really took time and care with your books. Wishing you lots of continuing success!

Loved the details behind your writing life and stories, Laura! The little tidbit I'm tucking away is this: Nothing should be as it seems and earlier chapter should mean something else later on. I think that's true for most writing. Even titles and book covers have a whole new meaning for me after reading the book.

HI Katie! *waves*Kristin - I did do a lot of research as everyone should when making life altering decisions. :)

Barbara - Thanks! I agree that it's like that for any book. The cover, the title, the earlier chapters take on new meaning as the story progresses!

And I can send the winner the epub version or mobi version through email too. I know that with Kindle you can forward the version to your free.kindle.com account. If you have an ereader device I can help with instructions on how to sideload from Smashwords if you're used to books appearing on your device.

I won a free book last year and it took weeks to figure out how to get it on my Kindle before someone helped me out!

Great interview, I also started writing as a creative outlet too, Laura! (and quit scrapbooking because of the expense!)I didn't know that Nathan Bradsford said that about midlisters either...very interesting!I hope you sell lots and lots of copies and can go to Paris with the extra $, Laura!

What a fun interview! I've loved watching Laura's publishing journey. She's an inspiration to all of us. By the way, I also love the name Savvy. My teen neighbor's name is Savannah, and she's nicknamed Savvy :)

Julie - Thanks! I can't wait to see your journey take off too! Savvy's real name is Savannah I just never use it in the book. I made that change like a week before it was published! That has never happened before!

One of the reasons I write girl action stories is because so many girl stories were about boys, gossip and friendships but not a lot of action. Okay, so it's nice to have boys in there but I wanted to have it all. They say to write what you love to read...